


a poison to die by

by thebriars



Series: drumfred ficlets [6]
Category: Victoria (TV)
Genre: ??????? - Freeform, M/M, a bunch of question marks is a reoccurring tag for me oh well, i suffer from an inability to write anything remotely long, vague period-typical homophobia, weird religion shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-17 00:44:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15449574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebriars/pseuds/thebriars
Summary: mmmmm guess strange late-night drabbles are the only things i can write atm oh well•••Edward entangled with the fire, its burn tender and welcome. “Any God-fearing man would’ve turned back by now,” he whispered, smoke in his lungs and clinging to his lips.





	a poison to die by

**Author's Note:**

> so basically i had some thoughts about how a + e and other people who were lgbtq/not white christian men from england dealt with religion in the victorian era on a personal level so this happened. my own relationship with religion is weird af and i may be projecting a bit onto both of them?? idk. also this also has sexual themes i’ll just leave it here

It started when Alfred was thirteen and he noticed his friend Andrew Moore had beautiful eyes. They were green and dusty, rather like the sea glass the hoard of Paget siblings had amassed from the shoreline over the years, and they began to glitter in Alfred’s dreams.

 

When he finally realized, years on, that he had no love for women, Andrew’s sea-glass eyes felt taunting and sly, a poison he longed to die by. Alfred had prayed, young and naive to his predicament, but the hands he prayed with crawled with sin now.

 

But when he was sixteen, Andrew caught his hand as they fooled about in the shadow of the sharp bluff above, and Alfred wondered if love was truly so shameful.

 

He stopped praying.

 

•••

 

Edward was born a question. A mother with her hands locked around a bible and a father with eyes so blinded with gold that he could not see the heavens.

 

He thought he knew God when he saw Alfred, for God must have been the spirit who flooded his veins with an ache so deep it could have only been love. And Alfred was a raging fire in Edward’s quiet life, dangerous and beautiful, and the flames danced as though they itched for Edward to touch and take. But the burn was strong enough to send Edward reeling into Florence and her safety.

 

There must have been God, for Edward had found something precious amidst a world of the mundane.

 

He had nothing to fear.

 

•••

 

Darkness gave the illusion of privacy that they craved, for it was harder to see the reality when it was clouded in night and lust.

 

There was no barrier between fact and fiction and neither of them cared.

 

Alfred had indulged his sin, but his hands felt holy once more as they found skin beneath those horrible constricting layers of clothing. Edward’s eyes echoed the sea glass as well, a clouded mahogany that glowed in candlelight.

 

Edward entangled with the fire, its burn tender and welcome. “Any God-fearing man would’ve turned back by now,” he whispered, smoke in his lungs and clinging to his lips.

 

Alfred’s fingers brushed his cheek, a smile like salt fleeting by. “I have no God to fear.”

**Author's Note:**

> i think i might work on something longer and more chapter-y based in the canon time frame with a deeper delve into this sort of shit but we’ll see. 
> 
> •••
> 
> i may be ace but i’m a hoe for comments <3


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